California community college president to lead Montgomery College

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051804996.html?hpid=sec-education

DeRionne P. Pollard, a California community college president known for having boundless energy in the face of state budget cuts, was announced Tuesday as the new president of Montgomery College.

Pollard, 39, is the ninth chief executive of Maryland's largest two-year college and the first since the departure in September of Brian K. Johnson. Trustees removed Johnson amid allegations of overspending and lapses in management, an episode that briefly plunged the school into administrative chaos. ...

Pollard was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. Her mother died when Pollard was 4, and she was raised chiefly by her father, who devised her first name (pronounced Dear-E-uhn).

"Education was highly valued in my family," Pollard, the elder of two daughters in a household that prized books over television, said in an interview. She received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from Iowa State University and a doctorate in higher education leadership from Loyola University on Chicago's North Side. ...

Pollard, who signed a five-year contract Tuesday, will start work at Montgomery College in August at a salary of $250,000. ...

She said she hopes to grow deep roots in the county with her longtime partner, Robyn Jones, and their 3-year-old son, Myles.